Positioning in pre-prepared and spontaneous parliamentary discourse: Choice of person in the Parliament of Montenegro

Abstract

Pronominal choice in political talk reflects hidden ideologies, which is why it has been a much-studied phenomenon in the discourse analytic research of politics in western democracies. However, similar topics remain largely unexplored in eastern and transition countries. With this in mind, the aim of the present article is to explore the use of subject pronouns and the person of the verb in the Parliament of Montenegro. The budget debate conducted in December 2009 was chosen for the corpus and was later subdivided into 10-minute pre-prepared ‘Speeches’ and three-minute ‘Comments’, which represent spontaneous responses. The two subcorpora were then compared with respect to person deixis. The results of the study point to the fact that, when given the chance to carefully plan their talk in advance, the MPs used the first-person plural and positive self-campaign much more often. On the other hand, in their spontaneous talk, the MPs more often referred to themselves as individuals and resorted more readily to addressing others using negative presentation strategies. Their prepared talk was therefore crafted and tailored for political effect through the use of consciously employed persuasive strategies that relate to the choice of person. It is suggested that the comparison of pre-scripted and unscripted political talk can reveal underlying political ideologies.

Keywords

Comments I parliamentary discourse person of the verb speeches subject pronouns we you

Introduction

Language does not merely mirror reality, language also constitutes reality. On the one hand, language represents a medium that allows for communication to take place in a social setting, whereas on the other, it actually conditions and impacts the way reality is perceived, categorized, characterized and assessed. Thus, the discourse of politics nowadays, in ‘a period of increasing social paradigm shifts and political polarizations’ (Ilie, 2010: 879), participates in the consititution of a fundamental element of practically every society – its political reality. Words do not simply describe a pre-existing truth; words in political discourse effectively help realize it (Hodges, 2008: 2).

Person deixis encodes the perspective from which the speaker addresses his/her audience, be it the perspective of an individual, a member of a group or a member of a greater whole. In political discourse, the choice of person shifts depending on the message a politician wants to send: vote for me or vote for us or even vote against them. By exploring referential management (the term used by Tomlin et al., 1997), we have tried to identify the obvious, surface messages, but also to deconstruct the hidden ones in a piece of political discourse – a 7-hour 30-minute long extract from the 2009 budget debate held in the Parliament of Montenegro. Taking advantage of the fact that parliamentary discourse in Montenegro consists of speeches prepared in advance, to be read out in the parliament, and comments that are spontaneous in nature, the aim was to see whether the two ‘discourses’ would differ with respect to how person deixis was employed, and thereby discover whether there were any consciously employed pronominal strategies intended for persuasion.

Politics in Montenegro is in everyone’s mouths and homes. Parliamentary debates are broadcast on the first channel of the National Broadcasting Company, typically from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and later thoroughly digested by the media and the electorate. Therefore, parliamentary discourse was chosen as a par excellence piece of political discourse, where one could encounter both pre-scripted and unscripted political talk. Namely, politicians are invited to give a 10-minute speech, provided that they have applied to do so to the President of the Parliament¹ in advance, and 3-minute comments on the speeches and comments of the other MPs, which are typically spontaneous. The comparison of the two, through the lenses of person deixis, is the aim of this article.

Linguistic research of this type of discourse is consistently on the rise (Rasiah, 2007: 3), bearing in mind that parliaments represent institutional arenas featuring processes that are ‘at the heart of western democracies’ (Bayley, 2004: 9). Arena is not too strong a word – what sets parliamentary discourse apart from other kinds of political discourse is its pronounced polarization, a consequence of constant power struggles (Gelabert-Desnoyer, 2008: 409), manifested in the striving of one side to win power and the other to preserve it. This discourse, therefore, features prototypical patterns of the processes of identification and disassociation, which result in in-group identity and inter-group dissent (Ilie, 2004: 83), and which are reflected in and fuelled by the choice of person.

Previous research on parliamentary discourse

Even though its research is on the rise, the discourse of parliamentary debates remains largely unexplored (Gelabert-Desnoyer, 2008: 410; Van der Valk, 2003: 315). A stronger interest in this genre developed at the turn of the 20th century, and it is safe to say that the number of research articles on parliamentary language is increasing by the day. However, there still seems to be a lack of broader, systematic and comprehensive research, resulting in the fact that few entire books have been published on the topic.

In the research conducted so far, most attention has been devoted to the UK House of Commons, ‘the most visible’ institution of UK political life (Ilie, 2003b: 73), which can be explained by the fact that its discourse is ritual in some of its elements (the consequence of its long history) and that its debates are conducted in English.

Several research articles have dealt with the nature of parliamentary discourse in general (Bayley, 2004; Bianchini, 2008; Ilie, 2003c, 2006). In a number of articles, authors have focused on specific parliamentary speeches (Ensink, 1997; Fløttum and Stenvoll, 2009; Frumuselu and Ilie, 2010; Sauer, 1997; Van Dijk, 2002, 2005), whereas others have written on the use of key words (Bayley and San Vincente, 2004; Bayley et al., 2004; Ilie, 1999; Jose and Moore, 2007; Vasta, 2004) and phraseology (Elspass, 2002). The methodology of corpus linguistics has been employed in the research of similar topics by Bara et al. (2007) and Cucchi (2007), as well as by Bijeikiené and Utka (2007), who wrote on gender equality in parliament. In addition, authors have concentrated on particular topics of the debates (see, e.g., a number of Van Dijk’s articles dealing with immigration and racism in western parliaments (1997, 2000); the issue is also discussed by others (e.g. Van der Valk, 2003)).

A number of articles have dealt with parliamentary discourse from a pragmatic perspective. These include papers on politeness (David et al., 2009; Ilie, 2004, 2005; Yetkin, 2006), interruptions (Bevitori, 2004; Carbó, 2004; Shenav, 2008; Zima et al., 2008) and metadiscourse (Ilie, 2000, 2003a, 2003b).

Parliamentary debates have also been examined from the point of view of contextual analysis (Dupret and Ferrié, 2008; Van Dijk, 2004, 2008), intertextual analysis and the media representation of parliamentary discourse (Archakis and Tsakona, 2009, 2010; Gadavanij, 2002).

Additionally, researchers have dealt with questions in parliamentary discourse, focusing mostly on adversarialness and evasion (Fenton-Smith, 2008; Rasiah, 2007, 2010).

The review presented here does not claim to be all-inclusive, but aims to give an idea of the lines of research currently conducted in the area.

Person deixis in political discourse

The change of the perspective that is used by a politician can be employed either subconsciously or strategically (Partington, 2003: 63), but either way it encodes ideological positions, that is, it gives an insight into whether a politician sees himself/herself as an individual or a member of a group that may or may not involve the electorate. This is at the heart of our hypothesis – if politicians are true to how they referentially present themselves and address others, there should not be any substantial differences between their spontaneous discourse and the discourse they have prepared to read. If, however, we find such differences, this could point to a conscious use of person deixis for persuasive effect and manufacturing of identities. It is worthwhile to note that most Montenegrin MPs prepare their parliamentary speeches themselves and that, in respects other than referential management, their comments do not differ greatly from their speeches.

Various research articles have been written on the topic of pronominal choice in political discourse (such as Ensink, 1997; Fetzer and Bull, 2008; Halmari, 2008; Van Leeuwen, 2009; Wilson, 1990). Different positioning is achieved through the use of personal pronouns, possessive pronouns and the person of the verb (in highly inflected languages, such as Montenegrin), and can be used to the ends of mitigating responsibility, encouraging solidarity, designating others as in-group or out-group, and also reflecting personal and political ideologies.

When taking credit for an achievement, politicians will speak through the I-perspective. The excessive use of this pronoun and person can, however, suggest egotism and individualism, which is why it is often avoided. As has been well documented, in the discourse of politics, preference is given to the we-perspective, with several potential referents: I and another person, I and a group, I and the whole country, and I and the rest of humanity. The use of this person connects the speaker and his/her audience, suggesting that what is said is common and indisputable. In addition, the socio-psychological process of group identification is at work, creating emotional allegiance between the persons who see themselves as belonging to a group (Ensink, 1997: 7) and, in political discourse, identification is actually persuasion (Allen, 2007: 3).

The relation between the use of the I-perspective and the we-perspective can be indicative of the strategies employed. Thus, the use of the I-perspective signals that the speaker positions himself outside the collective. This is why the we-perspective gives advantage to the politician – he/she can share responsibility with the collective and encourage the audience to identify with the emotions of the speaker (Jones and Peccei, 2007: 53).

Further, the use of the you-perspective suggests division and polarization. By omitting it, categorizing can be avoided and the distance between politicians and people can be reduced (Halmari, 2008: 259). Such divisions are commonly accompanied by positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation strategies (Van Dijk, 1997: 36), which are basically semantic strategies, to use the term employed by Van der Valk (2003: 317).

However, pronominal choice is not just a matter of personal choice – research suggests that in the western sociocultural context, a speaker will typically conceptualize herself as an individual (Fetzer and Bull, 2008: 277). Having in mind that culture also plays a part, we decided to conduct this analysis on a corpus from only one national parliament.

Data and methodology

As mentioned previously, the corpus for this research was taken from the first and second days of the budget debate held in the Parliament of Montenegro in December 2009.

We have explained that parliamentary sessions in Montenegro have wide TV audiences and that they are broadcast in their entirety on the first channel of the National Broadcasting Company. This is a TV company with the best coverage in the country and in many areas one of the very few stations that can be watched without cable subscription; it is also the third most watched TV network in the country.² The budget debate is one of the most important debates and MPs regularly put much effort into preparing for it and strive to do their best. The debate we are analysing in this article came a couple of months before the local elections, which is why its importance was even greater than usual.

The transcripts of the parliamentary sessions in Montenegro are published online and are very true to their original oral form. This is why we did not edit the transcripts.

The details of the corpus follow in Table 1.

Table 1.

Corpus details.

Parliamentary session	Sixth sitting of the second regular session
Debate	Budget debate for 2010
Corpus source	Authorized transcripts^a
Date	15–16 December 2009
Duration	7h 30 min
Word count	45,435
Page count	127
No. of turns	140
No. of MPs who participated	25

Taken from: http://www.skupstina.me/cms/site_data/AKTI%202010-1/FONOGRAFSKI%20ZAPIS%206_sj_2_red_zas_15,16_i%2017_12_2009_.pdf

The general framework through which we approached the subject matter is discourse analysis, and political discourse analysis in particular, although these are just umbrella terms covering a variety of methods and topics of research. Our qualitative analysis within the framework of discourse analysis and, to a certain degree, pragmatics is supplemented by a quantitative analysis of the data.

In the first part of the article, we deal with the use of personal pronouns in the speeches and the comments separately. Later, we complement the results with the analysis of the person of the verb, which proved more valuable. At this point, it is worthwhile clarifying that subject pronouns do not have to be used in Montenegrin, that is, the subject’s person is already expressed by the finite form of the verb.

We have divided our corpus into two subcorpora available for comparison: the Speeches (26,462 words) and the Comments (17,436). According to the Standing Orders, speeches last up to 10 minutes and MPs need to apply for the right to give a speech before the parliamentary session (Article 97). Three minutes are allowed for comments, which comprise general comments to speeches and replies. The latter are allowed if an MP or a political party is ‘mentioned in a negative context’ (Article 101). In practice, Montenegrin MPs never comment on the speeches delivered by MPs from the same party and, in addition, the frequency of replies is very high, which is why the debate style is very adversarial.

The rest of the original corpus comprises the president’s turns, which include turn allocations and announcements, and short objections in case an MP believes that the rules have been breached, which we did not focus on in the analysis.

It should also be noted that the debates in the Parliament of Montenegro are very controlled, in that the president allows MPs to take the floor strictly according to the rules of procedure and also decides whether an MP or a political party was mentioned in a negative context in the case of replies. The president controls the microphones installed in front of every MP, which are immediately turned off after the allowed time has passed. Interruptions by MPs who do not hold the floor at the time are therefore inaudible to TV viewers and are not included in the proceedings, which is why interjections are rare.

We did not encounter much difficulty in separating the speeches from the comments, considering their duration and the announcements of the president, who clearly states whether an MP is entitled to a speech or a comment in the upcoming turn.

Throughout the article, we comment on the findings qualitatively and critically, in the vein of critical discourse analysis.

Before we proceed any further, a few factors that could influence the results need to be considered. First, we must bear in mind that speeches and comments belong to different modes. Whereas speeches are mostly written to be spoken, comments belong to spoken discourse, but of the kind which is loaded with a great deal of ‘prepackaged politics’, to use Franklin’s term (1994), meaning that politicians readily repeat their messages and arguments over and over again. As far as we know, there have not been any studies of the frequency of personal pronouns in spoken and written discourse in Montenegrin and related regional languages, but we must assume that these would differ significantly in a number of respects. However, there are no arguments to suggest that the frequency of personal pronouns would be significantly lower in the written mode, although we do assume that it could be somewhat lower, on account of the fact that greater care is taken to avoid repetition in the written mode.

In addition, we accept that different modes also impact on the choice of person. Generally, there is less self-reference and direct reference to others in the written mode, but this is precisely what we want to bring attention to. The written mode is certainly crafted and therefore we want to examine exactly how crafted it is, in terms of persuasive strategies regarding the choice of person, in comparison to spoken, unscripted discourse in the area of political genres. What will the politicians be careful to avoid and prudent enough to promote?

Another potential impact of mode to consider is the monologue/dialogue dimension. Namely, although both speeches and comments are part of parliamentary debate, which can be considered a public dialogue, speeches tend to be more monologic, whereas comments are more dialogic in nature. However, exchanges of comments are rarely dialogues between two MPs only, bearing in mind that virtually at all times MPs directly address or at least consider other MPs in the House and the TV audience. For the same reason, speeches are rarely monologues only and this is why both the subgenres are intrinsically dialogic. This dimension of mode can account for some of the differences regarding the choice of person in the speeches and the comments analysed, which is why we shall deal with this matter later in the article.

Use of personal pronouns

In this part of the text, we deal with the frequency and use of personal pronouns in the Speeches and Comments separately.

A methodological problem arising here is what cases to treat, that is, should all cases of personal pronouns be included or not? We solved the problem taking into account the aim of the research – we decided to limit the analysis to the use of the nominative case, that is, the subject case, due to the fact that it is the most relevant case for person deixis if the main purpose is to examine the positioning of speakers. Additionally, this will allow us to have comparable data with the second part of the analysis, in which we examine the use of the person in the verb, that is, its implied subject. We decided to take into account only the personal pronouns that had people as referents, while their other uses were considered irrelevant for the issue explored.

Let us now present the results of the frequency of subject pronouns in the Speeches and Comments separately.

What is striking in Tables 2 and 3 is that there are large discrepancies in the frequency of subject pronouns and their relative distribution.

Table 2.

Use of subject pronouns in Speeches.

Speeches
Pronoun used as subject	RF^a	NF^b	Pronoun used as subject	RF	NF
ja (I)	26	0.98	mi (we)	44	1.67
ti (you)	0	0	vi (you)^c	25	0.95
on (he)	7	0.26	oni (they)	17	0.64

RF: raw frequency, i.e. the total number of occurrences of the word in the corpus.

NF: normalized frequency, i.e. the total number of occurrences of the word in 1000 words of the corpus.

Montenegrin has a T-V distinction, i.e. the second-person plural pronoun can be used as a polite form to address both individuals and groups with courtesy, usually in formal and institutional settings.

Table 3.

Use of subject pronouns in Comments.

Comments
Pronoun used as subject	RF	NF	Pronoun used as subject	RF	NF
ja (I)	61	3.50	mi (we)	60	3.44
ti (you)	0	0	vi (you)	128	7.34
on (he)	12	0.69	oni (they)	15	0.86

In the Speeches, the dominant subject pronoun is we (37.11%), followed by I (21.78%) and you (21.11%). On the other hand, the Comments have you as subject in 46.37% of cases, which accounts for almost half the subject pronouns used, followed by the subject I (22.11%) and we (21.73%). Thus, the tables have turned, leaving I as the only constant in the function. Politicians refer to themselves as members of a group when they are given the chance to carefully plan their talk, whereas in spontanenous talk, the use of the subject we substantially decreases, resulting in less self-reference and more than twice as much other-reference. Let us see how this works in practice.

The Montenegrin electoral system is such that people vote for parties and much less attention is devoted to individual politicians on the list (of course, excluding the most prominent leaders). In this light, it does not surprise us to find that, when given the opportunity to plan their talk, MPs will generally promote themselves as party members. Therefore, the reference to we in the Montenegrin political discourse is most frequently a political party, meaning that we is used in its exclusive sense:

(1) DAMJANOVIĆ: … Interesuje me da li planirate da uvažite ove preporuke, jer ako ne brinemo o Centralnoj banci Crne Gore mi u SNP-u definitivno brinemo o usklađenosti politike Centralne banke Crne Gore koja je zadužena za monetarnu stabilnost itd…

(… I would like to know whether you plan to accept these recommendations, because even if we do not take care of the Central Bank of Montenegro, we in SNP ³ definitely do take care about the consistency of the policy of the Central Bank of Montenegro, which is in charge of monetary stability etc.…)

(2) MEDOJEVIĆ: …Sada, praktično, mi ovdje se samo gledamo kao dvije strane , niti mi možemo da utičemo na njihove planove, niti možemo da utičemo na to što oni rade…

(…Now, practically, we here are looking at each other as two sides , we can neither exert influence on their plans, nor can we influence what they do. . .)

(3) KONJEVIĆ: … Mi iz Socijaldemokratske partije ovih dana smo iznosili jasne primjedbe koje se tiču Budžeta…

(. . . We from the Socialist Democratic Party have been making clear complaints about the budget…)

(4) BOŽOVIĆ: … Mi ćemo i danas kao Socijalistička narodna partija u tom smislu uložiti sav svoj napor …

(… We as the Socialist People’s Party are going to invest all our efforts in this matter today as well…)

(5) ŽUGIĆ: . . . Dakle i Vlada Crne Gore i resorno Ministarstvo i mi poslanici vladaju ć e koalicije, vladajuć e partije , svakako podržavamo sve ono što se dešava na polju poreske reforme . . .

(…Therefore, both the Government of Montenegro and the competent Ministry and we, the MPs of the ruling coalition, of the ruling party , certainly support everything that is being done in the area of tax reform…)

While making speeches, MPs are mostly promoting their policies and their group, using positive self-presentation strategies (such as we . . . are going to invest all our efforts (extract 4)), that is, parties are prevailingly positively self-oriented. This explains the dominant use of the subject we (37.11%).

In addition, this exclusive use of the pronoun we (mi) is very typical of Montenegrin politics, which is characterized by pronounced polarization between the two sides, the position and the opposition. Because of overwhelming polarization, such references of we that encompass all MPs are avoided, practically, at all costs.

However, when challenged in the exchange of comments, self-orientation tends to get lost to a certain degree and is replaced by negative other-presentation and the frequently used subject pronoun you:

(6) LUKŠIĆ: …Dakle, Vi imate problem sami sa sobom i prvo se opredijelite šta je to politika koju vi zagovarate…

(…So, you have a problem with yourself and first do make up your mind of what the policy that you stand for is about . . .)

(7) PINJATIĆ: …Naravno, Vi pričate ovdje istu priču godinama koju pričaju vaši politički lideri…

(Of course, you have been telling us the same story for years , the story that your political leaders have been telling us…)

(8) LABUDOVIĆ: …Ja se baš živo pitam na osnovu čega Vi tako transparentno ispoljavate taj optimizam kad ga ne ispoljava ni onaj koji je sačinio ovaj budžetski predlog?

(…I really wonder on the basis of what you express your optimism so

openly , when even the one who has drafted this budget bill does not express it…)

(9) MILIĆ: . . . Vi zovite to vanredne penzije - ja ih zovem one penzije koje su otete od onih koji su ih zaslužili u prethodnom periodu…

(. . . you call it extraordinary pensions – I call it pensions that have been robbed from those who earned them in the previous period…)

In the Montenegrin parliament, the referent of you is typically a whole party, although sometimes it refers to a single MP. The use of this pronoun is frequently accompanied by negative other-presentation techniques, as is the case in all of the four examples illustrated above (extracts 6–9). When challenged, parliamentarians readily resort to (negative) other-presentation strategies, which they are so careful to avoid in their speeches (you is used in 46.37% of the cases in the Comments vs. 21.11% in the Speeches). Therefore, the strategy employed to reply to challenging is primarily counter-attacking, not self-defence.

When comparing Tables 2 and 3, the most striking finding is that subject pronouns are far more frequent in the Comments, which are more spontaneous. The pronoun I is used 3.57 times more frequently in this subcorpus, and the same can be said of we, which is 2.06 times more frequent, and of you, which is 7.73 times more often used in the Comments than in the Speeches. The logical question is: why are subject pronouns used much more frequently in the Comments?

One of the reasons is that comments tend to feature more of the I/you orientation due to their dialogic nature, bearing in mind that they come as a response to what a specific MP has said. However, we believe that this argument cannot account for all the differences in the density of subject pronouns in the Speeches and the Comments. Namely, we argue that directly addressing the individual/party that is challenged, that is, ‘naming the names’, contributes to a more confrontational discourse and a more successful attack. Also, referring to oneself (either as an individual or a member of a group) helps assert the challenger’s position. The use of personal pronouns puts greater emphasis on individuals/parties and brings them to the foreground. Let us consider the following examples:

(10) ŽIVKOVIĆ: … Ja mislim da ste Vi , gospodine Lukšiću, da je Vlada pomogla, tačno je to, bankarski sektor…

(. . . I think that you , Mr Lukšić, that the Government have helped the banking sector, that is true. . .)

(11) KONJEVIĆ: … Znači, nemojte Vi mene da kritikujete ako ja kao poslanik imam određenu primjedbu na to što radi gospodin Lukšić…

(…Don’t you criticize me if I as an MP have a certain complaint about what Mr Lukšić is doing…)

The statements in extracts 10 and 11 would certainly have been weaker had the proposition been: Mislim da ste pomogli or Nemojte me kritikovati (without the subject pronouns I and you). In literature, we find similar claims – by using pronouns, the emphasis is deliberately put on the speaker and the addressee, changing the focus of the sentence (Piper et al., 2005: 1006). Such emphasis especially comes in handy in the exchange of comments where more face-threatening acts (FTAs) are employed. Therefore, the use of personal pronouns depends largely on the context. Generally, the more challenging the discourse, the more often personal pronouns will be used to address and more strongly challenge another MP.

We shall support this claim with the following example. The Minister of Finance, Lukšić, who was at the centre of the debate, bearing in mind that he was most directly responsible for the budget bill, engaged in a series of comments with Medojević, one of the leaders of the opposition. In their exchange of 1452 words or 3% of the entire budget debate, 43 subject pronouns were used, that is 10.52% of all such pronouns in the whole corpus. Just how subject pronouns were used in this exchange of comments can be seen from its extracts:

(12) LUKŠIĆ: … Vi imate problem sami sa sobom…

… Vi kao partija imate problem…

…To za što se V i zalažete je zaista nešto što u Evropi ne možete pronaći…

… Ja se zalažem za konzistentan poreski okvir koji ne treba da zavisi od toga

kako vjetar duva ili kako ste se Vi probudili jedno jutro…

… Vi zamajavate javnost…

… Mi smo definisali okvir koji je potpuno zadovoljavajući…

( …You have a problem with yourself . . .

… You as a party have a problem…

…What you stand for is really something you cannot find anywhere in Europe…

… I stand for a consistent tax framework which should not depend on your whim or how you woke up one morning…

… You are fooling the public…

… We have defined a satisfying framework…)

MEDOJEVIĆ: … Vi bježite sa stručne rasprave…

… Mi govorimo o građanima Crne Gore, a Vi govorite o eliti s kojom se vjerovatno družite…

… Vi govorite da smo odbijeni, objavite to, a ja Vam kažem da govorite ortodoksnu neistinu…

… Mi se zalažemo da se oporezuju bogati…

… Vi ste uradili kontra…

… Vi to ne želite, bježite od realnog sektora…

… Vi ne znate koliki će prihodi biti…

(… You are running away from an expert debate…

… We are talking about the citizens of Montenegro and you are talking about the elite you are probably friends with…

… We want the rich to pay the taxes…

… You did exactly the opposite…

… You do not want to do it, you are running away from the real sector…

… You do not know what your incomes will be…)

The use of personal pronouns while challenging singles out the addressee. We saw earlier that the discrepancies are most evident with the subject pronoun you, which is used up to eight times more often in the Comments. By examining extract 12, we find the reason why. Namely, while challenging, you is used with negative presentation, where it helps attribute responsibility or has an accusatory effect on the person(s) it refers to. If you were omitted, the proposition would be weaker, as the addressee that is condemned would be in the background and not the very focus of the sentence. The subject position of these pronouns, most frequently the first position in the clause, also contributes to drawing the focus on the challenged MP(s).

Let us now examine and compare these comments with the speeches delivered by Lukšić and Medojević. Namely, in the introductory speech made by Minister Lukšić, there were 2799 words (four times as many as in the comments from which the extracts were taken), which featured only one subject pronoun. In the exchange of comments there were 20, although the exchange was much shorter. On the other hand, earlier in the debate, Medojević delivered a speech of 1774 words, which is twice as long as the comments the extracts were taken from. However, the number of subject pronouns in the speech was 26, whereas in the comments it was 43. Both politicians challenged much less in their speeches, which could account for the lower use of subject pronouns. So, once again, the degree of challenging may be directly linked to the frequency of subject pronouns.

Use of the person of the verb

Given that the subject can be omitted in the Montenegrin language, on account of the fact that the person is already expressed in the finite verb, most such verb forms do not feature their subject. This is why a comprehensive analysis of person deixis in Montenegrin cannot be carried out without analysing the person of the verb. On the other hand, given that subject pronouns change the focus of the sentence and are more frequently used in challenging contexts, the use of subject pronouns must also be analysed separately, as we did in the previous section. This is why our task of analysing the choice of person is somewhat more complex than it would be for English corpora, for example.

As the aim of this research is to examine the positioning of discourse participants, we have excluded all finite verb forms that had inanimate subjects and considered these irrelevant for the current analysis.

Let us start by examining Tables 4 and 5, which give details about the distribution of the person of the verb in the Speeches and Comments respectively. The frequency is given in percentages, so that we can compare the results more easily.

Table 4.

Person of the verb in Speeches.

Speeches
Finite verb forms with animate subject:	1.p.s.	2.p.s.	3.p.s.	1.p.p.	2.p.p.	3.p.p.
931	247	5	81	396	103	99
100%	26.53%	0.53%	8.7%	42.53%	11.06%	10.63%

p.s., person singular; p.p., person plural

Table 5.

Person of the verb in Comments.

Comments
Finite verb forms with animate subject:	1.p.s.	2.p.s.	3.p.s.	1.p.p.	2.p.p.	3.p.p.
1435	387	0	132	361	332	223
100%	26.96%	0%	9.19%	25.15%	23.13%	15.54%

p.s., person singular; p.p., person plural

We notice tendencies similar to those observed in the frequency of subject pronouns. Among these similarities are the following: the Speeches feature the first-person plural in 42.53% of the finite verb forms having an expressed or implied animate subject, versus 25.15% in the Comments; the second-person plural is twice as frequent in the Comments than in the Speeches; the use of the third person is substantially greater in the Comments; the first-person singular is roughly equally used in the two subcorpora.

The first result, the overwhelming use of the first-person plural in the Speeches, confirms that this perspective is very often artificially introduced into political talk. Politicians know the benefits of using this perspective (such as group identification, party promotion, sharing responsibility, etc.), which is why they are careful to use it as much as possible when they can plan their talk. However, in spontaneous talk, they have other things to worry about and therefore become less careful about it, which results in a drop of its use by more than a third. We conclude that the more spontaneous the talk, the less inclusive perspective is used.

Accordingly, the first-person plural perspective can be employed deliberately as a persuasive device, meaning that politicians consciously prefer to present themselves as members of a group and promote the group, probably counting on group identification with the electorate. But, as a matter of fact, politicians do not consider themselves part of a group that much in reality. Consequently, when they talk spontaneously, they accuse others more often and refer to themselves less as group members and more as individuals. Their underlying personal and political ideologies seem to be different in reality.

The first-person plural usually has a more inclusive meaning when used without a subject pronoun. Namely, whereas we can be followed by restricting content (such as we in SNP or we, the ruling party, etc.), no such restrictions can be imposed on a subjectless finite verb:

(13) BULAJIĆ: …Uvoz je finansiran inokreditima i za posljedicu imamo veliki rast spoljnjeg duga…

(. . . Import is financed through foreign loans and consequently we have a large increase in external debt…)⁴

(14) LUBURIĆ: …Da bismo bolje sagledali gdje se i u kakvoj situaciji nalazimo danas kada razmatramo predlog novog budžeta, u kakvoj situaciji se možemo naći već sjutra, možda nije zgoreg da se ukratko osvrnemo i na neka ekonomska dešavanja u Evropskoj uniji…

(. . . So that we could better see where we are and what position we are in today when we are reviewing the budget bill and what situation we may find ourselves in tomorrow, perhaps it will not be excessive if we briefly consider some economic occurrences in the European Union…)

(15) RADUNOVIĆ: …Sada smo dotakli dno i moramo da se sukobimo s problemom i suočimo da Crna Gora nema razvijenu privredu, da se niko nije bavio tim problemom šta ćemo da radimo kada sve rasprodamo . . .

(. . . Now we have hit the bottom and we have to face the problem and see that Montenegro does not have a developed economy, that no one has dealt with the issue of what we are going to do when we sell everything off…)

(16) VUKSANOVIĆ: …Što više prolazi vrijeme imamo taj pozitivni trend rasta ovih elemenata, što govori da, ipak, imamo pomake unaprijed …

(. . . As the time goes by, we have this positive trend of growth of these elements, which says that we do have some progress…)

In all these cases, the implied subject is somewhat ambiguous, but given that it was not stated otherwise, we will conclude that the subject is the most inclusive one: I + party + people/country. Even if it could be understood as I + the ruling coalition (the government), as in the case of the position of MPs, the result is the same, bearing in mind that the position frequently presents its government as equal or identical to the state/country/nation, which is very manipulative.

As was shown in the analysis of pronominal choice, the more frequent use of the second-person plural occurs while challenging and this also goes for the third person, singular and plural.

Apart from the finding that the second-person plural is associated with the strategies of negative presentation of others, which is not surprising, we would like to point here to another more interesting and significant result. Namely, our analysis has shown that 17.7% of all the forms used with this person were in the imperative form:

(17) MEDOJEVIĆ: … Objavite to, dajte , potpi š ite . Molim Vas, Vi ste rekli da smo odbijeni, objavite to, a ja Vam kažem da govorite ortodoksnu neistinu i to nije prva…

…To je jedna neodgovorna, nedomacinska politika i mi smo vas sto puta pozivali, raskinite taj ugovor, naplatite penale…

(. . . Publish it, common , sign it. I pray you, you said that we were rejected, publish it, and I tell you that you are telling a complete untruth and this is not the first one from you…

…It is an irresponsible, reckless policy and we have called on you a hundred times, break this agreement, charge the penalties…)

(18) LUKŠIĆ: …Dakle, Vi imate problem sami sa sobom i prvo se opredijelite šta je to politika koju vi zagovarate…

(. . .Therefore, you have a problem with yourself and first do make up your mind of what the policy that you stand for is about . . .)

(19) KONJEVIĆ: … Znači, nije baš da se ništa ne prihvata. Dajte vi konkretno . . .

. . . Znači, nemojte Vi mene da kritikujete ako ja kao poslanik imam određenu primjedbu na to sto radi gospodin Lukšić …

(. . . It’s not as if nothing got accepted. Give us concrete proposals…

…Therefore, don’t you critici z e me if I as an MP have a certain complaint about what Mr Lukšić is doing…)

(20) ŽIVKOVIĆ: . . . Ne vjerujem da ćete vi ostvariti jer se prvim rebalansom ovo biti prepolovljeno, ali makar nemojte dirati ovo sa sjevera…

(…I don’t believe that you will be able to achieve all this because this will be halved in the first rebalance, but at least don’t touch this on the north…)

The imperative is frequently avoided in institutional settings, in which politeness norms have to be met, at least formally, and there is a need not to ‘impose’. However, as we can see, while challenging, MPs often resort to it, although it is a ‘bald, on-record’ strategy in Brown and Levinson’s model (1987), lacking any effort to minimize threats to the other’s face. Negative presentation strategies are therefore frequently associated with expressing threat to the other’s face and a lack of politeness.

In the Comments, the third person is the implied subject of 15.54% of the finite verb forms. Whereas the difference between the use of the second person of the verb in the Speeches and the Comments was 100%, the difference in this case was about 50%. The reason is the fact that Montenegrin MPs prefer to challenge other MPs directly. In other words, they hesitate to employ distancing techniques, as in:

(21) LABUDOVIĆ: …Ja se bojim da će se gospodin Krivokapić na početku ovog mog komentara naježiti …

(. . . I am afraid that Mr Krivokapić will be upset at the beginning of this comment of mine…)

(22) LUKŠIĆ: …Suština je da ako prihvatimo makar dio teza koje je iznio gospodin Medojević i ako dijagnosticiramo stanje ekonomije upravo onako kako ga je on dijagnosticirao i izrazimo tim povodom sumnju u realnost primitaka…

(. . . The point is that if we accept at least part of the hypotheses delivered by Mr Medojević and we diagnose the state of the economy just as he has diagnosed it and we express doubts about the reality of achieving these revenues . . .)

(23) BULAJIĆ: … Pošto je gospodin Gospić rekao nove grin fild investicije, interesuje me koje su to stare grin fild investicije u privredi i ekonomiji Crne Gore?

(. . . As Mr Gospić mentioned new green field investments, I would like to know what old green field investments there have been in the economy of Montenegro?)

This is a strategy commonly used in the UK House of Commons, for example, where it is actually imposed by the parliamentary rules, which forbid second-person address to another member. As such, the strategy rests on distancing, that is, negative politeness. Montenegrin MPs rarely engage in distancing and prefer directness when opposing others, thus delivering more face-threatening acts. This can explain why the use of the second-person verbs saw a dramatic 100% rise in its frequency in the Comments.

At this point, we would like to go back to the issue of the monologic/dialogic nature of speeches and comments. Namely, comments come as a direct response to what a specific MP has just said, and thus could, by their very nature, feature more of the I/you orientation. We argue that this fact can account only for some of the differences in Tables 4 and 5, but that the scope of its influence is limited.

First, if we consider the data from Tables 4 and 5, we notice that the I-perspective saw a very slight rise in the Comments, when compared to other figures. A further point to make is that the third-person singular perspective had an increase of 5.63%, while the third-person plural perspective rose substantially by 46.19%, which can only be explained by the arguments presented earlier – the more frequent use of other-referencing along with negative presentation strategies in adversarial contexts. Therefore, we accept that the Comments were more you-oriented due to their dialogic nature, but we also argue that the dramatic rise by exactly 109.13% cannot be accounted for solely on the basis of this argument.

Additionally, the idea that pre-scripted and unscripted political talk differ in the density and use of pronouns can also be confirmed by research such as that of Wilson (1990: 74–6). Namely, after comparing some of the pre-scripted and unscripted speeches delivered by Michael Foot, Wilson found that the frequency of pronouns was much greater in the unscripted speeches and that they more often featured the pronoun you. The monologue/dialogue dimension of mode could not have played a role in this analysis, which is why we suggest that the dramatic differences between the speeches and the comments from our study cannot solely be explained by this argument. This phenomenon is probably universal and not restricted to Montenegrin politics.

Conclusion

In interpreting the results of this article, we will start from the hypothesis set out in the introduction – spontaneous political talk could differ from political talk prepared in advance when person deixis comes into question and this could be, at least partly, a consequence of politicians’ efforts to consciously employ certain pronominal strategies with the intent of persuasion.

The results of the analysis of the subject pronouns used, as well as the subject of the verb, strongly suggest that in speeches, which are prepared in advance, Montenegrin politicians will use more of the first-person plural (we) perspective, while its use will be significantly less in spontaneous talk. Apparently, politicians are keenly aware of the benefits of the plural perspective, which encompasses the electorate and sends the message that they all belong to the same group. In addition, in exchanges of comments, politicians will use more of the I- and the you-perspective, asserting their position and drawing attention to the addressee whose face is challenged, bringing them to the foreground.

The analysis also provided other interesting and important findings. First, it seems that the use of the subject pronoun we in the Montenegrin parliamentary discourse has an exclusive meaning (the reference of the pronoun is commonly a political party), whereas in the case of the first-person plural verbs where the subject was omitted, the reference of the implied subject was inclusive. It appears that subject pronouns are used when merits and credits of the party need to be especially pointed out.

Another finding of the analysis is that the difference between the use of the third person with and without subject pronouns was not as dramatic as in the case of the second-person plural. Namely, instead of an implied third-person subject, the Montenegrin MPs preferred to name the third parties directly, so that the blame could be directed at the right addressee clearly and unambiguously.

The differences in the use of person deixis in pre-prepared and spontaneous political talk cannot be attributed exclusively to mode (the channel of communication, i.e. spoken and written, as well as the monologue/dialogue dimension). In fact, the impact of mode seems to be limited when compared to the persuasive goals of politicians. Although they do not really see themselves as part of the same group as the electorate, as we could see in their spontaneous talk, they will still use this perspective as often as they can when given the chance to plan their talk.

Politicians consciously use language that evokes group identification, which serves as part of their persuasive strategies. We believe that this phenomenon is not restricted only to Montenegrin politics, but that it is a common persuasive device of politicians regardless of borders.

Footnotes

Notes

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